Donald Trump’s Angry, Perfectly Timed Debate Exit

Unlike at his first Presidential debate on Fox News, Donald Trump has little to gain from participating in Thursday’s faceoff.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JOE RAEDLE / GETTY

Donald Trump's campaign said that Fox News’s C.E.O., Roger Ailes, can't "toy" with him, and so he's not going to the network's debate in Des Moines on Thursday night. The Republican debates had already become strange playthings, with giant planes on the stage, and grown men having tantrums about how much attention they were getting. They argued about how they would scare people in other countries and beat them up, and the less popular candidates attacked one another and hoped that no one would notice that they weren't going after the bully. There was a debate in which they were asked about putting a woman's picture on American currency, and they started talking about their moms and cool foreign ladies. It was getting pathetic. The sitcom—or tragicom—needed a bright new character. Fox News seems to have thought that Megyn Kelly, its intelligent host, might do the trick. But Donald Trump doesn't want to play with her anymore.

He had done so, plenty, after she asked him a pointed question in an earlier debate about his attitudes toward women. That led to Trumpian Twitter attacks and his description of blood from "her wherever." It also encouraged the idea that Kelly might be the voice of a more sensible wing of the right, but it's not clear that there is any such thing, or not in any coherent form. And, anyway, that's not how Fox News was using her. Instead, it was playing up the gladiatorial aspect: Can Trump take on the smart blonde? Their interaction would indeed have been a side show in the debate—an illuminating one, perhaps, or maybe just a very special episode in this series of Republican dysfunction. After Trump's complaints about whether Kelly could be fair to him—his exploration of the subject included a Twitter poll of his supporters—Fox News put out this statement:

We learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president — a nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings.

Trump referred to this message as "that wise-guy press release," when speaking to reporters on Tuesday night. The next morning he added, on Twitter, "Who would ever say something so nasty & dumb?" Well, Trump would. But, in truth, the Fox statement does read less like a clarion call about journalistic independence and more like a reality-show promo. In that, it fits the moment perfectly, and says a lot about why the Republican establishment has not been able to stop Trump. (He is now planning a rally in Iowa as counter-programming for the debate, dedicated to “wounded warriors.”) Fox News, in responding to Trump's withdrawal, said, "We can’t give in to terrorizations toward any of our employees," and then noted that Trump, who has been terrorizing Kelly for months, would still be welcome on Thursday and treated fairly, "just as he has been during his 132 appearances on FOX News & FOX Business." Trump, of course, should not get a veto over the moderators, but, in fairness, it does not sound like he was dodging a sober discussion of the issues. Ted Cruz confirmed this, in a way, braying all over Iowa about how Trump is "a fragile soul" who is "scared" of Kelly. Cruz, who is in a close race with Trump in Iowa—Trump is well ahead of everyone in New Hampshire—offered to go "mano a mano" with him in a one-on-one, no-moderator, ninety-minute debate. (Just like a college debate!) Trump has taken to calling Cruz “the Canadian.” One question about Thursday is whether, with Cruz now at center stage, any of the other candidates will take up the citizenship issue, now that they won’t have Trump to do it for them. A bigger question is just what kind of messy free-for-all it will be. The other candidates have mainly been spending their energy attacking one another (this is where much of the money that Jeb Bush raised seems to be going) or, in Chris Christie’s case, yelling at someone who asked why he was in New Hampshire rather than dealing with floods in New Jersey, “Do you want me to go down there with a mop?" Is anybody being serious over there?

Maybe Donald Trump. His campaign’s statement on his debate decision said that, “unlike the very stupid, incompetent people running our country into the ground, Mr. Trump knows when to walk away.” But he’s not walking away from the Presidential race; he has made it clear, in the past week, that he wants badly to win, and is willing to do things like stay in a Holiday Inn in Iowa and orchestrate more of a get-out-the-vote effort to make it happen. It could be that his exit from the debate stage was, from his perspective, perfectly timed—a second before he and the audience got bored. In the first debate, Trump's presence on the stage with "real" politicians elevated him, but at this point the setting would diminish anyone. The debates are no longer what Trump might call a classy venue. Fox's announcement of the lineup, shortly before Trump stormed off, likely didn't help. Rand Paul, who had been excluded last time because of low poll numbers, made it back onto the main stage, for a total of eight participants. In a well-run reality show, the field is quickly winnowed down. This one is getting bigger. And so Trump went off to look for a more exclusive club, at his own rallies in Iowa and, soon, everywhere.

Amy Davidson Sorkin is a New Yorker staff writer. She is a regular Comment contributor for the magazine and writes a Web column, in which she covers war, sports, and everything in between.